Life inside North Korea's Camp 14 so twisted 13-year-old Shin In Geun that he betrayed his mother and only brother.

A North Korean soldier patrols inside the fence of a prison camp near the Chinese border / AP

Nine years after watching his mother's hanging, Shin In Geun
squirmed through the electric fence that surrounds Camp 14 and ran off through
the snow into the North Korean wilderness. It was January 2, 2005. Before then,
no one born in a North Korean political prison camp had ever escaped. As far as
can be determined, Shin is still the only one to do it.

He was 23 years old and knew no one outside the fence.

Within a month, he had walked into China. Within two years, he was living in
South Korea. Four years later, he was living in Southern California.

Stunted by malnutrition, he is short and slight -- five feet
six inches, about 120 pounds. His arms are bowed from childhood labor. His
lower back and buttocks are scarred with burns from the torturer's fire. The
skin over his pubis bears a puncture scar from the hook used to hold him in
place over the fire. His ankles are scarred by shackles, from which he was hung
upside down in solitary confinement. His right middle finger is cut off at the
first knuckle, a guard's punishment for dropping a sewing machine in a camp
garment factory. His shins, from ankle to knee on both legs, are mutilated and
scarred by burns from the electrified barbed-wire fence that failed to keep him
inside Camp 14.

"There is nothing in my life to compare with this burden."

Shin is roughly the same age as Kim Jong Un, the chubby
third son of Kim Jong Il who took over as leader after his father's death in
2011.

Shin was born a slave and raised behind a high-voltage
barbed-wire fence. His mother beat him, and he viewed her as a competitor for
food. His father, who was allowed by guards to sleep with his mother just five nights
a year, ignored him. His older brother was a stranger. Children in the camp
were untrustworthy and abusive. Before he learned anything else, Shin learned
to survive by snitching on all of them.

Love and mercy and family were words without meaning.

In Camp 14, Shin did not know literature existed. He saw
only one book in the camp, a Korean grammar, in the hands of a teacher who wore
a guard's uniform, carried a revolver on his hip, and beat one of his primary
school classmates to death with a chalkboard pointer.

Unlike those who have survived a concentration camp, Shin
had not been torn away from a civilized existence and forced to descend into
hell. He was born and raised there. He accepted its values. He called it home.

When he was too young for school, his mother often left him
alone in the morning, and came back from the fields at midday for lunch. Shin
was always hungry and he would eat his lunch as soon as his mother left for
work in the morning.

He also ate her lunch.

When she came back at midday and found nothing to eat, she would
become furious and beat her son with a hoe, a shovel, anything close at hand.
Some of the beatings were as violent as those he later received from guards.

Many years later, after she was dead and he was living in
the United States, he would tell me that he loved his mother. But that was in
retrospect. That was after he learned that a civilized child should love his
mother.

She never talked to him about her past, her family, or why
she was in the camp, and he never asked. His existence as her son had been arranged
by guards. They chose her and the man who became Shin's father as prizes for
each other in a "reward" marriage.

The eighth rule of Camp 14, as Shin was required to memorize
it, said: "Should sexual physical contact occur without prior approval, the perpetrators
will be shot immediately." If unauthorized sex resulted in a pregnancy or a
birth, the woman and her baby were usually killed.

Shin's father told Shin that guards gave him Jang as payment
for his skill in operating a metal lathe in the camp's machine shop. Their
liaison produced two sons. They barely knew each other.

When he was ten, Shin left his house one evening and went
looking for his mother. He was hungry and it was time for her to prepare dinner.
He walked to a nearby rice field where his mother worked and asked a woman if
she had seen her.

"She's cleaning the bowijidowon's
room," the woman told him, referring to the office of the guard in charge
of the rice farm.

Shin walked to the guard's office and found the front door
locked. He peeked through a window on the side of the building. His mother was
on her knees cleaning the floor. As Shin watched, the bowijidowon came into view. He approached Shin's mother from behind
and began to grope her. She offered no resistance. Both of them removed their clothes.
Shin watched them have sex.

He never asked his mother about what he saw, and never mentioned
it to his father.

As school wound down on Friday, April 5, 1996, Shin's
teacher surprised him. He told Shin that he could go home and eat supper with
his mother.

MORE ON NORTH KOREA

Shin did not particularly want to spend the night at his
mother's place. He still didn't trust her to take care of him; she still seemed
tense in his presence. The teacher, however, told him to go home. So he went.

There was a bigger surprise when Shin got there. His
brother, He Geun, had come home too.

Shin's mother was not delighted when her youngest son showed
up unexpectedly for supper. She did not say welcome or that she had missed him.

"Oh, you are home," she said.

Then she cooked, using her daily ration of 700 grams of corn
meal to make porridge in the one pot she owned. She and her sons ate on the
kitchen floor. After he had eaten, Shin went to sleep in the bedroom.

Voices from the kitchen woke him up. He peeked through the
bedroom door, curious about what his mother and brother were up to.

His mother was cooking rice. For Shin, this was a slap in
the face. He had been served a watery corn soup, the same tasteless gruel he
had eaten every day of his life. Now his brother was getting rice.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of rice in North
Korean culture. It signifies wealth, evokes the closeness of family, and
sanctifies a proper meal. Labor camp prisoners almost never eat rice and its absence
is a daily reminder of the normality they can never have.

In the bedroom, Shin fumed. He also listened.

He Geun had not been given the day off. Without permission,
he had walked away from his work post, where he had apparently done something
wrong. His mother and brother were discussing what they should do.

Escape.

Shin was astonished to hear the word. His brother said it.
He was planning to run. His mother was helping him. Her precious hoard of rice was
food for flight.

Shin did not hear his mother say that she intended to go
along. But she was not trying to argue her eldest into staying, even though she
knew that if he escaped or died trying she and others in her family would be
tortured and probably killed.

Shin's heart pounded. He was angry that she would put his
life at risk for the sake of his older brother. He was afraid he would be
implicated in the escape -- and shot.

He was also jealous that his brother was getting rice.

As the aggrieved 13-year-old struggled to contain his fear,
Shin's camp-bred instincts took over: he had to tell a guard. He got up off the
floor, went into the kitchen, and headed out the door.

"Where are you going?" his mother asked.

"To the toilet," he said.

Shin ran back to his school. It was one in the morning. He
entered the school dormitory, woke his friend Hong Sung Jo, and found a guard.

Shin said he had something to tell him in exchange for more
food and to be made "grade leader" at school. The guard agreed. Shin explained
what his brother and mother were planning and where they were. The guard
telephoned his superiors. He told Shin and Hong to go back to the dormitory and
get some sleep. He would take care of everything.

On the morning after he betrayed his mother and brother,
uniformed men came to the schoolyard for Shin.

He was handcuffed, blindfolded, pushed into the backseat of
a jeep, and driven away in silence to an underground prison inside the camp.

"Do you know why you are here?"

Shin knew what he had done; he had followed camp rules and
stopped an escape.

But the officer did not know -- or did not care -- that Shin
had been a dutiful informer.

"At dawn today, your mother and your brother were caught
trying to escape. That's why you're here. Understand? Were you aware of this fact
or not? How is it possible for you not to know that your mother and brother
tried to run away? If you want to live, you should spit out the truth."

"I was more faithful to guards
than to my family."

Confused and increasingly frightened, Shin found it
difficult to speak. He would eventually figure out that the night guard at the
school had claimed all the credit for discovering the escape plan. In reporting
to his superiors, he had not mentioned Shin's role.

But on that morning in the underground prison, Shin
understood nothing. He was a bewildered 13-year-old. The officer with four stars
kept asking him about the whys, whens, and hows of his family's escape plan.
Shin was unable to say anything coherent.

Interrogators tortured Shin for several days, grilling him
about the attempted escape. What grudges did his mother harbor? What did he
discuss with her? What were his brother's intentions? They stripped Shin, tied
ropes to his ankles and wrists, and suspended him from a hook in the ceiling.
They lowered him over a fire. The sessions ended when Hong, Shin's friend who
had helped him inform, confirmed what had happened. The guards carried Shin, too
weak to walk, to a cramped cell, his new home.

After several months, the guards took Shin to the same room
where, in early April, he had first been interrogated. Now, it was late
November. Shin had just turned 14. He had not seen the sun for more than half a
year.

What he saw in the room startled him: his father knelt in
front of two interrogators who sat at their desks. He seemed much older and more
careworn than before. He had been brought into the underground prison at about
the same time as Shin.

His father's right leg canted outward unnaturally. He had
also been tortured. Below his knee, his leg bones had been broken, and they had
knitted back together at an odd angle. The injury would end his relatively comfortable
job as a camp mechanic and lathe operator. He would now have to hobble around
as an unskilled laborer on a construction crew.

They were handcuffed, blindfolded, and led outside to the
elevator. Above ground, they were guided into the backseat of a small car and
driven away. When the car stopped after about 30 minutes and his blindfold was removed,
he panicked.

A crowd had gathered at the empty wheat field near his
mother's house. This was the place where Shin had witnessed two or three executions
a year since he was a toddler. A makeshift gallows had been constructed and a
wooden pole had been driven into the ground.

Shin was now certain that he and his father were to be
executed. He became acutely aware of the air passing into and out of his lungs.
He told himself these were the last breaths of his life.

His panic subsided when a guard barked out his father's
name.

"Hey, Gyung Sub. Go sit at the very front."

Shin was told to go with his father. A guard removed their
handcuffs. They sat down. The officer overseeing the execution began to speak.
Shin's mother and brother were dragged out.

Shin had not seen them or heard anything about their fate
since he walked out of his mother's house on the night he betrayed them.

"Execute Jang Hye Gyung and Shin He Geun, traitors of the
people," the senior officer said.

Shin looked at his father. He was weeping silently.

The shame Shin feels about the executions has been
compounded over the years by the lies he began telling in South Korea. For
years after his escape from the camp, he said that he learned of the escape
attempt only when the guards told him, that he had not informed. He feared how
people would treat him if they learned that he had been responsible for their
deaths.

"There is nothing in my life to compare with this burden,"
Shin told me on the day in California when he first explained how and why he
had misrepresented his past.

But he was not ashamed on the day of the executions. He was angry.
He hated his mother and brother with the savage clarity of a wronged and
wounded adolescent.

As he saw it, he had been tortured and nearly died, and his
father had been crippled, because of their foolish, self-centered scheming.

And only minutes before he saw them on the execution
grounds, Shin had believed he would be shot because of their recklessness.

When guards dragged her to the gallows, Shin saw that his
mother looked bloated. They forced her to stand on a wooden box, gagged her, tied
her arms behind her back, and tightened a noose around her neck.

They did not cover her swollen eyes.

She scanned the crowd and found Shin. He refused to hold her
gaze.

When guards pulled away the box, she jerked about
desperately. As he watched his mother struggle, Shin thought she deserved to
die.

Shin's brother looked gaunt and frail as guards tied him to
the wooden post. Three guards fired their rifles three times. Bullets snapped
the rope that held his forehead to the pole. It was a bloody, brain-splattered
mess of a killing, a spectacle that sickened and frightened Shin. But he thought
his brother, too, had deserved it.

Shin had invented the lie about his family's escape just
before arriving in South Korea.

"There were a lot of things I needed to hide," he said. "I
was terrified of a backlash, of people asking me, 'Are you even human?'"

"I was more faithful to guards than to my family. We were
each other's spies. I know by telling the truth, people will look down on me."

"Outsiders have a wrong understanding of the camp. It is not
just the soldiers who beat us. It is the prisoners themselves who are not kind to
each other. There is no sense of community. I am one of those mean prisoners."

Shin said he did not expect forgiveness. He said he had not
forgiven himself. He also seemed to be trying to do something more than expiate
guilt. He wanted to explain -- in a way that he acknowledged would damage his
credibility as a witness -- how the camp had warped his character.

He said that if outsiders could understand what political
prison camps have done -- and are doing -- to children born inside the fence,
it would redeem his lie and his life.

About the Author

Blaine Harden is a contributor to The Economist and has formerly served as The Washington Post's bureau chief in East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. He is the author of Escape from Camp 14 and other books.

Most Popular

After a year of uncertainty and unhappiness, the president is reportedly feeling more comfortable—but has he really mastered the job?

It was a fun weekend for Donald Trump. Late on Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Andrew McCabe, the outgoing FBI deputy director whom Trump had long targeted, and the president spent the rest of the weekend taking victory laps: cheering McCabe’s departure, taking shots at his former boss and mentor James Comey, and renewing his barrage against Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump’s moods shift quickly, but over the last week or so, a different overarching feel has manifested itself, a meta-mood. Although he remains irritated by Mueller and any number of other things, Trump seems to be relishing the latest sound of chaos, “leaning into the maelstrom,” as McKay Coppins put it Friday. This is rooted, Maggie Haberman reports, in a growing confidence on the president’s part: “A dozen people close to Mr. Trump or the White House, including current and former aides and longtime friends, described him as newly emboldened to say what he really feels and to ignore the cautions of those around him.”

Invented centuries ago in France, the bidet has never taken off in the States. That might be changing.

“It’s been completely Americanized!” my host declares proudly. “The bidet is gone!” In my time as a travel editor, this scenario has become common when touring improvements to hotels and resorts around the world. My heart sinks when I hear it. To me, this doesn’t feel like progress, but prejudice.

Americans seem especially baffled by these basins. Even seasoned American travelers are unsure of their purpose: One globe-trotter asked me, “Why do the bathrooms in this hotel have both toilets and urinals?” And even if they understand the bidet’s function, Americans often fail to see its appeal. Attempts to popularize the bidet in the United States have failed before, but recent efforts continue—and perhaps they might even succeed in bringing this Old World device to new backsides.

How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory

One of the most extraordinary things about our current politics—really, one of the most extraordinary developments of recent political history—is the loyal adherence of religious conservatives to Donald Trump. The president won four-fifths of the votes of white evangelical Christians. This was a higher level of support than either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, an outspoken evangelical himself, ever received.

Trump’s background and beliefs could hardly be more incompatible with traditional Christian models of life and leadership. Trump’s past political stances (he once supported the right to partial-birth abortion), his character (he has bragged about sexually assaulting women), and even his language (he introduced the words pussy and shithole into presidential discourse) would more naturally lead religious conservatives toward exorcism than alliance. This is a man who has cruelly publicized his infidelities, made disturbing sexual comments about his elder daughter, and boasted about the size of his penis on the debate stage. His lawyer reportedly arranged a $130,000 payment to a porn star to dissuade her from disclosing an alleged affair. Yet religious conservatives who once blanched at PG-13 public standards now yawn at such NC-17 maneuvers. We are a long way from The Book of Virtues.

A new six-part Netflix documentary is a stunning dive into a utopian religious community in Oregon that descended into darkness.

To describe Wild Wild Country as jaw-dropping is to understate the number of times my mouth gaped while watching the series, a six-part Netflix documentary about a religious community in Oregon in the 1980s. It’s ostensibly the story of how a group led by the dynamic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh purchased 64,000 acres of land in central Oregon in a bid to build its own utopian city. But, as the series immediately reveals, the narrative becomes darker and stranger than you might ever imagine. It’s a tale that mines the weirdness of the counterculture in the ’70s and ’80s, the age-old conflict between rural Americans and free love–preaching cityfolk, and the emotional vacuum that compels people to interpret a bearded mystic as something akin to a god.

Among the more practical advice that can be offered to international travelers is wisdom of the bathroom. So let me say, as someone who recently returned from China, that you should be prepared to one, carry your own toilet paper and two, practice your squat.

I do not mean those goofy chairless sits you see at the gym. No, toned glutes will not save you here. I mean the deep squat, where you plop your butt down as far as it can go while staying aloft and balanced on the heels. This position—in contrast to deep squatting on your toes as most Americans naturally attempt instead—is so stable that people in China can hold it for minutes and perhaps even hours ...

As the Trump presidency approaches a troubling tipping point, it’s time to find the right term for what’s happening to democracy.

Here is something that, even on its own, is astonishing: The president of the United States demanded the firing of the former FBI deputy director, a career civil servant, after tormenting him both publicly and privately—and it worked.

The American public still doesn’t know in any detail what Andrew McCabe, who was dismissed late Friday night, is supposed to have done. But citizens can see exactly what Donald Trump did to McCabe. And the president’s actions are corroding the independence that a healthy constitutional democracy needs in its law enforcement and intelligence apparatus.

McCabe’s firing is part of a pattern. It follows the summary removal of the previous FBI director and comes amid Trump’s repeated threats to fire the attorney general, the deputy attorney, and the special counsel who is investigating him and his associates. McCabe’s ouster unfolded against a chaotic political backdrop that includes Trump’s repeated calls for investigations of his political opponents, demands of loyalty from senior law-enforcement officials, and declarations that the job of those officials is to protect him from investigation.

The first female speaker of the House has become the most effec­tive congressional leader of modern times—and, not coinciden­tally, the most vilified.

Last May, TheWashington Post’s James Hohmann noted “an uncovered dynamic” that helped explain the GOP’s failure to repeal Obamacare. Three current Democratic House members had opposed the Affordable Care Act when it first passed. Twelve Democratic House members represent districts that Donald Trump won. Yet none voted for repeal. The “uncovered dynamic,” Hohmann suggested, was Nancy Pelosi’s skill at keeping her party in line.

She’s been keeping it in line for more than a decade. In 2005, George W. Bush launched his second presidential term with an aggressive push to partially privatize Social Security. For nine months, Republicans demanded that Democrats admit the retirement system was in crisis and offer their own program to change it. Pelosi refused. Democratic members of Congress hosted more than 1,000 town-hall meetings to rally opposition to privatization. That fall, Republicans backed down, and Bush’s second term never recovered.

For years, the restaurateur played a jerk with a heart of gold. Now, he’s the latest celebrity chef to be accused of sexual harassment.

“There’s no way—no offense—but a girl shouldn’t be at the same level that I am.”

That was Mike Isabella, celebrity chef and successful restaurateur, making his debut on the show that would make him famous. Bravo’s Top Chef, to kick off its Las Vegas–set Season 6, had pitted its new group of contestants against each other in a mise-en-place relay race; Isabella, shucking clams, had looked over and realized to his great indignation that Jen Carroll, a sous chef at New York’s iconic Le Bernardin, was doing the work more quickly than he was.

Top Chef is a simmering stew of a show—one that blends the pragmatic testing of culinary artistry with reality-TV sugar and reality-TV spice—and Isabella quickly established himself as Season 6’s pseudo-villain: swaggering, macho, quick to anger, and extremely happy to insult his fellow contestants, including Carroll and, soon thereafter, Robin Leventhal (a self-taught chef and cancer survivor). Isabella was a villain, however, who was also, occasionally, self-effacing. A little bit bumbling. Aw, shucks, quite literally. He would later explain, of the “same level” comment:

Congressional Republicans and conservative pundits had the chance to signal to Trump that his attacks on law enforcement are unacceptable—but they sent the opposite message.

President Trump raged at his TV on Sunday morning. And yet on balance, he had a pretty good weekend. He got a measure of revenge upon the hated FBI, firing former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe two days before his pension vested. He successfully coerced his balky attorney general, Jeff Sessions, into speeding up the FBI’s processes to enable the firing before McCabe’s retirement date.

Beyond this vindictive fun for the president, he achieved something politically important. The Trump administration is offering a not very convincing story about the McCabe firing. It is insisting that the decision was taken internally by the Department of Justice, and that the president’s repeated and emphatic demands—public and private—had nothing whatsoever to do with it.